By Kelly Faircloth 5/22 8:41am

Linkages

Nope.

Booting Up: No One Will Listen to the Inventor of the GIF About Pronunciation

Could our culture be any more saturated with hackathons? Now even the publishing business has latched onto them. [The Atlantic]

The creator of the GIF insists it’s pronounced “jif,” and no one will listen to him, not even the Oxford English Dictionary. Also, the dancing baby is still one of his favorites. [New York Times]

The immigration reform bill is headed to the Senate floor, which means FWD.us finally racked up a victory, of sorts, instead of just accumulating bad press for throwing the Alaskan caribou under the bus. [AllThingsD]

Microsoft just debuted a new Xbox, in case you were wondering what your spoiled nephew would be demanding for Christmas this year. [Wired]

By Kelly Faircloth 12/31/12 2:15pm

Moving Pictures

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Ring in the New Year With a Livestream of the Times Square Ball Drop — and also GIFs!

Back in November, Livestream partnered with Tumblr for a “live-GIFing” of the final presidential debate. Seems the experiment was successful enough for a return engagement: The company’s bountiful stream of coverage tonight from Times Square will include not just the usual interviews and musical performances, but also GIFs. Glorious GIFs!

This officially solidifies 2012′s place in the Internet history books as the year even your 80-year-old nana learned what “those little moving pictures” were. Read More

By Jessica Roy 11/12/12 3:54pm

Gif It To Me

Screen shot 2012-11-12 at 5.27.24 PM

GIF Beats Out YOLO to Become the Oxford American Dictionary’s 2012 Word of the Year

2012, it seems, is the year the GIF finally receives the recognition it deserves. Long had the short animated images languished on 4chan and Reddit before transitioning over to Tumblr and BuzzFeed. 2012 was the year of the reaction GIF blog, where everyone from law students to editors filled Tumblrs with GIFs meant to capture (and laugh at) the human condition. Then came an avant-garde form of election coverage, where stables of live-GIFers fought with Photoshop to bring their devoted audiences the funniest, most compelling GIFs of the presidential candidates.

Now, the GIF has received the ultimate sign of zeitgeisty approval: “GIF” (the verb) is officially the Oxford American Dictionaries’ 2012 word of the year. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 10/23/12 5:00pm

Exit Through the GIF Shop

Gif maestro. (Photo: via Livestream)

An Evening of Debate and GIF-Making, With Tumblr and Livestream

Monday night, Betabeat headed downtown for a new twist on presidential debate punditry. Rather than merely wisecracking, drinking or even live-blogging, Internet types assembled for something new this election cycle: a “live GIF off” of the proceedings, arranged by Tumblr and Livestream.

Our destination was 111 8th Avenue, most famously Google’s New York HQ but also the home to Livestream, our hosts for the evening. Normally an office, the space had been transformed into a multimedia hub, with screens scattered throughout, streaming feeds from both the debate and (so meta) the event itself. Read More

By Myles Tanzer 12:15pm

Gif It To Me

(Photo: vimeo.com)

Michael Stipe Is Now The Simon Cowell Of GIFs

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey have all taken brief pauses in their pop careers to now become reality show judges on The X Factor, The Voice, and American Idol, respectively. Although it’s not for a reality show, another 90′s icon, Michael Stipe, is getting in on the judging game.

He’s been elected to join the selection committee for “Moving The Still,” which of course is the world’s first GIF’s-only arts festival. The event is being put on by Tumblr as well as the art collection site, Paddle8, and will take place during Miami Art Week from December 4th to the 9th. Read More